Somewhere along the way, we got the idea that we are supposed to think in perfectly neat single-file lines. We don't. We think in millions of idea bubbles. Sometimes, all those thought bubbles overwhelm us and we just have to let them pop. Don't hold it in. Speak. Be heard. You have a voice, too.

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Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Just One Man

“This is an attack on our people. An attack
on Orlando. An attack on Florida. An attack on America. An attack on all of us.”
– Florida Governor Rick Scott

This is not
about the power of the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. If you want to
own a gun, own a gun. If you don’t want to, don’t. That is your right; it is
your life.

This is not
about the First and the Fourteenth Amendments; if you want to be a Christian,
be a Christian. Or if you want to be a Muslim, be a Muslim. Be a Jew. Be a
Buddhist. Be an Atheist. Be anything you want. You have that religious freedom.
It is your life.

Do you see?
It is your life. Yours. I cannot and will not tell you how to live it. Do with
your life what you want to do, but do not tell me what to do with mine.

When I read
the story about the shooting in Orlando, I was overwhelmed. So much death. So
many wounded. People with families, friends. People who felt joy, and laughter,
and sorrow. People who knew what it was to dread Mondays and long for Fridays.
It doesn’t matter that Pulse is an LGBTQ+ bar. They were just people. And in
the slim hours when Saturday night mysteriously changes to Sunday morning, one
man decided to change the course of Pulse’s history forever.

One man.

Again, this
has nothing to do with the First, Second, or Fourteenth Amendments. This has to
do with a single person. You see, presidential candidates will use this event,
as deplorable as that is, to further their campaigns. That means spin-doctors
will come in and instead of saying one man caused this problem, suddenly it
becomes a huge matter of politics and policy. But it isn’t.

This was the
act of one man.

One man who
twisted his own mind. One man who visited the night club a number of times to
feel it out, get the layout, learn the rooms, and know where people would hide.
One man who posted a profile on a gay dating app to take the measure of the “gay
temperament”. One man who preferred to
drink alone and not engage in the “Pulse” around him (so to speak), unless he
was intoxicated, in which case he became loud and unmanageable.

We can sit
back and judge all we want. We can be desperate for a group to blame, to find a
scapegoat, to find some way that this couldn’t have happened. At our safe
distance, it is simple to rewind history and say, “Well, it never would have
happened if...”. But how many generations of people will be blamed before they
get to this one man?

Because it was
just one man.

One man was
the boogeyman in Orlando. It wasn’t because of a religion. It wasn’t because of
guns. It was because of him. It was because he chose to pull that trigger over
and over and over. It was because he selected that nightclub in advance. It was
because he could not allow others to live their own lives, as he was allowed to
live his, that he murdered 49 people and wounded countless more. I will not
write his name, though I do pray his soul finds peace. The 49 deserve to be
remembered not as martyrs, but because they could easily be you, because
someone, somewhere, could simply decide he doesn’t approve of some facet of
your life and will kill over it. You may be caught in the crossfire. Remember
them. Even if just this once. Say their names. Because you would want to be
remembered, too.